Wages top OFW complaints

THE OVERSEAS Workers Welfare Administration (OWWA) Region Welfare Office (RWO) 11 revealed that most reports of Overseas Filipino Workers (OFWs) concerns delayed or unpaid salaries.

But cases such as rape, sexual harassment, maltreatment, even illegal detention also existed.

Relative to the imple- mentation of the Workers Welfare Assistance Program, the welfare cases report of RWO 11 has recorded 136 OFWs with unpaid or delayed salaries.

Other reports include maltreatment with 120 cases, overwork with 71, noncommunication with 63, rape or sexual harassment with 50, status condition

with 37, imprisonment with 37, physical and verbal abuse with 36, whereabouts queries with 27, poor working condition with 15, medical assistance with 15, attempted rape with four, request for OFW membership certification and missing at sea with a single case.

The RWO also attended a total of 49 medical cases with 42 physical illness cases and seven mental illnesses cases.

The region has also recorded 557 requests for repatriation of OFWs with different cases. These include physically and mentally challenged OFWs, human remains and other OFWs who are distressed.

Such “requests for assistance were well-taken by this office and were properly endorsed to the Philippine Overseas Labor Office (POLO) to look into the cases,” they said in a statement.

OWWA XI Regional Director Petrona Bergado also encouraged “those OFW dependents and families having welfare concerns or need immediate assistance to contact or visit the regional welfare office located at Doors 31 E-G, G.B. Cam Building, Monteverde St., Davao City or call hotline numbers 09177011135/0917-7011126.”